One thing that makes the latest, six-legged incarnation of Take That supremely likeable is how happy they are to take the p*** out of themselves.

‘Hello Manchester!’ a very sweaty Gary Barlow, Mark Owen and Howard Donald roar in unison to an ear-splitting homecoming crowd. ‘We’re what’s left of Take That!’

The band’s story is a wild one. As a five-piece in the 1990s they became the most successful British group since The Beatles – until Robbie Williams quit in 1995. The remaining four made an acclaimed comeback after a decade in the wilderness, eventually welcoming Williams back into the… Read the full story]]>

‘My life is really abnormal now,’ says Taylor Swift, curling herself into an armchair in a London hotel suite. ‘But I refuse to let this whole thing make me weird, unapproachable and impossible to have a conversation with.’

Poised, self-deprecatingly funny and sweet, Swift isn’t any of those things – but she’s certainly racked up some fairly ‘abnormal’ achievements for someone who is only 24 years old.

A seven-time Grammy winner already, Swift’s smart songwriting flair has won praise from the likes of Neil Young and Stevie Nicks. Her new, fifth… Read the full story]]>

When six chatty women descend upon an afternoon tea at a London hotel, you know you’re in for an interesting couple of hours. And one thing’s for sure: after six years together, The Saturdays still have plenty to say to each other.

The conversation pings between the Fifty Shades Of Grey audiobook, the ‘nostalgic’ scent of Lynx Africa and… Read the full story]]>

I’m off to find black-clad art rockers The Horrors in about as unfitting a location imaginable – a chain hotel in central London’s Leicester Square.

We’re meeting here because the five-piece band are dashing between radio interviews to talk about their new album, Luminous. I catch loomingly tall frontman Faris Badwan and sweet bassist Rhys ‘Spider’ Webb grabbing an orange Fanta – the least gothic drinks imaginable.

Tracking the musical evolution of The Horrors has been like watching a caterpillar turn into a butterfly, which, without warning, shape-shifts into a dragon and takes… Read the full story]]>

Lily Allen – is she angry or just about to get her period? (Picture: supplied)

Review: Lily Allen – Sheezus (Parlophone)

After two multi-platinum albums, nobody really believed Lily Allen was retiring at the age of 23. This comeback ranges over a subtly diverse array of styles, from the autotuned dancehall pop of L8 CMMR to the twangy country of As Long As I Got You.

The latter features Allen’s stand-out lyrical ability, detailing a happily messy marital bliss in her inimitable style: ‘Staying at home with you is better than sticking things up my nose.’

http://metro.co.uk/2014/05/02/lily-allens-sheezus-sweetness-and-bite-from-pops-gloriously-gobby-princess-4715653/feed/0Good music to play if you are single (Picture: supplied)Lily Allen - is she angry or just on her period? (Picture: supplied)Trent Reznor: If I could be involved with the concert food, I wouldhttp://metro.co.uk/2014/05/02/trent-reznor-if-i-could-be-involved-with-the-concert-food-i-would-4715720/
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There are very few acts that, whether you’re ordinarily interested in their music or not, you just have to see live.

Trent Reznor’s Nine Inch Nails, with their industrial rock mixture of brutal synths, metal guitar riffs and intrinsically undeniable pop melodies, are one of those acts – famous for breathtaking, immersive live performances. And with the latest incarnation of NIN about to hit Britain for an arena tour, following the release of their latest album, Hesitation Marks, in September, Brits now have the first chance… Read the full story]]>

Courtney Love is back on stage – and a reunion of her old band Hole has been talked about (Picture: supplied)

‘My, you are very well prepared,’ says Courtney Love, peering down at three pages of neatly typed questions as I sit down next to her on a Groucho Club sofa. I’ve worn my best leather and biker boots get-up in honour of the occasion, but rock’s most controversial chick has instantly outed me as a secret geek.

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Damon Albarn’s first solo album lays bare his childhood, drug use and love life (Picture: Linda Brownlee)

What with Blur, Gorillaz, Africa Express, two operas – and all the rest – it’s perhaps no surprise that Damon Albarn has only now, at the age of 46, found time to make his first solo record.

And it wasn’t really even his idea – XL label boss Richard Russell, who co-produced Bobby Womack’s The Bravest Man In The Universe with Albarn, nudged him into it.

So Russell now oversees the complex, multilayered beats here, and Albarn the remainder –… Read the full story]]>

http://metro.co.uk/2014/04/25/damon-albarns-everyday-robots-is-a-warm-melancholy-treat-4708050/feed/0Damon Albarn’s first solo album lays bare his childhood, drug use and love life (Picture: Linda Brownlee)Damon Albarn’s first solo album lays bare his childhood, drug use and love life (Picture: Linda Brownlee)Friends of the Earth: Meat Free Mayhttp://metro.co.uk/2014/04/23/friends-of-the-earth-meat-free-may-4705676/
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Changing diet: A quarter of British adults are eating less meat. Inset, Philip Lymbery, author of Farmageddon (Picture: Alamy)
The next time you’re feeling bikini-related anxiety after chowing down on a cheeseburger, here’s something to make you feel even worse – the knowledge that the international meat and dairy industry is responsible for up to half the climate-changing gases produced by humankind. That’s more than every plane, train, lorry and car combined.

Musical chameleon Kelis is back with a rootsier style that brings attention to her love of food.

Who do you think of when you think of Kelis? Is it the scorned woman with rainbow hair, screeching ‘I HATE YOU SO MUCH RIGHT NOW!’ in 1999 hit Caught Out There? Is it the kitschly sexy star jiggling away in an old-school diner in 2003’s Milkshake? The Calvin Harris-collaborating rave pop queen?

Today, the Harlem-born singer sits with a pot of tea in east London, wearing tartan slacks and a powder-blue polo neck… Read the full story]]>

http://metro.co.uk/2014/04/16/kelis-i-wasnt-brought-up-to-apologise-for-myself-4700057/feed/0Kelis’s new album, Food, draws on the singer’s Cordon Bleu-training (Picture: supplied)Kelis’s new album, Food, draws on the singer’s Cordon Bleu-training (Picture: supplied)The Vamps: Being compared to One Direction is no bad thing but we are a completely different bandhttp://metro.co.uk/2014/04/11/the-vamps-being-compared-to-one-direction-is-no-bad-thing-but-we-are-a-completely-different-band-4694844/
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Italo-Scottish soulboy Paolo Nutini, the chip shop owner’s son from Paisley who shot to fame at the tender age of 17, has admitted he found it tough to adapt to the public glare – and following his No.1 2009 album, Sunny Side Up, he withdrew back home for a while.

Five years (and the breakdown of a decade-long relationship) later, he’s back with an intense new record – with no happy ditties about New Shoes in sight. Caustic Love is very varied in tone, swooping from the sexy funk of Scream (Funk My Life Up)… Read the full story]]>

Todd Terje debut album is an eclectic selection of songs (Picture: Supplied)
One side of a mighty Norwegian disco pyramid – along with Prins Thomas and Hans-Peter Lindstrøm – the quietly mannered Todd Terje has spent a decade building a reputation as solid as a Nordic pine (and being sampled by Robbie Williams on his comeback hit, Candy) while remaining utterly unpredictable.

Something of the night: Sohn turned nocturnal to work on Tremors (Picture: Amelia Troubridge)

Already a hotly tipped producer for the likes of Kwabs and Banks, Sohn removed himself from the dirty London hustle to record his anticipated debut in Vienna – turning entirely nocturnal to do so.

So it’s small wonder that lonely yearning and paranoia loom large in this crisp, crepuscular electronic soul record, which bears comparison with SBTRKT and a more regular sounding, accessible James Blake. Lyrically, we’re launched into a grim and isolated place, although the minimal nature of Sohn’s dark, looping production makes moments… Read the full story]]>

http://metro.co.uk/2014/04/04/sohn-tremors-lonely-yearning-and-paranoia-loom-large-in-this-crisp-electronic-soul-record-4688007/feed/0Something of the night: Sohn turned nocturnal to work on Tremors (Picture: Amelia Troubridge)Something of the night: Sohn turned nocturnal to work on Tremors (Picture: Amelia Troubridge)Johnny Cash – Out Among The Stars: One ‘lost’ album that’s not a disappointmenthttp://metro.co.uk/2014/03/28/johnny-cash-out-among-the-stars-one-lost-album-thats-not-a-disappointment-4680745/
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Out Among The Stars was recorded between 1981 and 1984 (Picture: Supplied)

‘Lost’ albums often turn out to be a disappointment. Not so with this complete record from the Man In Black, recorded in 1981 and 1984 with legendary country pop producer Billy Sherrill and recovered by Cash and his wife June’s son, John, as he was delving through his parents’ extensive archives.

The songs date from a fairly fallow period in Cash’s career, after his rockabilly heyday but before the stark and often even apocalyptic American Recordings series he made with Rick Rubin. As such, Cash devotees will swoon over this… Read the full story]]>

http://metro.co.uk/2014/03/28/johnny-cash-out-among-the-stars-one-lost-album-thats-not-a-disappointment-4680745/feed/0Out Among The Stars was recorded between 1981 and 1984 (Picture: Supplied)Out Among The Stars was recorded between 1981 and 1984 (Picture: Supplied)Shakira – Shakira: Still a unique pop forcehttp://metro.co.uk/2014/03/28/shakira-shakira-still-a-unique-pop-force-4680725/
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For a moment there, Shakira had us worried. After a 2012 collaboration with the dreaded Pitbull and rumours of an Afrojack-produced, EDM-heavy comeback, it seemed as though the new mother could be about to drop a Britney Jean-style bomb on us.

But this tenth album is, instead, a characteristically genre-hopping selection of dance, ska, country and rock-infused pop songs – all reinforcing the sense that Shakira is one of our most intelligent and unforcedly eccentric female megastars.

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George Michael’s Symphonica isn’t blessed with an abundance of new material (Picture: Caroline True)

Review: George Michael – Symphonica (Virgin EMI/Universal)

The first new George Michael album in ten years is something to get excited about – except there’s not really enough ‘new’ about this live orchestral record, largely recorded during the singer’s opulent 2011/12 Symphonica tour and flawlessly produced by Michael and the late Phil Ramone.

It features reworkings of Michael’s past hits and covers but five of these, including the US Depression-era standard Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?, were tackled on his 1999 album, Songs From The Last… Read the full story]]>

Kylie Minogue at an intimate London gig on Tuesday (Picture: Paul Hampartsoumian/Rex)

Waiting in the lobby of a plush central London hotel, I can sense Kylie Minogue coming before I see her. Two doormen flanking the entrance are whispering feverishly as they crane to look down the street – while a waitress bobs past with a tray of tea, humming: ‘I’m spinning around…’

Suddenly the 45-year-old arrives and scoots upstairs, past gaping faces, in a spotless camel-coloured coat. I join her in a fancy suite, where it’s hard to believe the Kylie – the woman who wore a pair of 50p gold… Read the full story]]>

http://metro.co.uk/2014/03/21/kylie-minogue-maybe-a-fairy-tale-happy-ending-isnt-my-destiny-4669741/feed/0Kylie Minogue at an intimate London gig on Tuesday (Picture: Paul Hampartsoumian/Rex)Kylie Minogue at an intimate London gig on Tuesday (Picture: Paul Hampartsoumian/Rex)Kylie Minogue on her Aphrodite tour in New York (Picture: Getty)A rare chance to see Malian musician Sidi Touré in Britainhttp://metro.co.uk/2014/03/14/a-rare-chance-to-see-malian-musician-sidi-toure-in-britain-4560879/
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Sidi Touré is only playing four gigs in Britain during this tour (Picture: Johnathan Crawford)

Sidi Touré is performing just four nights in Britain and is well worth seeing if you like world music.

Traditional songcraft and acutely modern social commentary fuse in the acoustic desert folk and blues of Malian songwriter and guitarist Sidi Touré. A multi-award-winner in his homeland and signed to the hip Thrill Jockey label, he’s only really begun touring in Britain and Europe in the past year or so but last year’s album Alafia – meaning ‘peace’ – achieved widespread international critical acclaim.

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Complete with a fabulously cringeworthy cover shot that features him sitting blindfolded in a woman’s crotch-shade, Iglesias’s tenth album proves him stuck in the lewd Euro rave-pop mode that’s informed his biggest hits in recent years.

He starts as he means to go on with I’m A Freak: basic choo-choo piano riff, squally synths and vocodered lyrics about popping and dropping and a woman who ‘f***s like an animal’.

Heeled boots were not the wisest choice. I’m standing at the dark mouth of an uneven spiral staircase, leading down to a World War II air raid shelter in Clapham, south London. With me are Richard Ballard and Steven Dring of Growing Underground, who have turned the abandoned tunnels into a herb and salad farm.

‘Transport for London popped down now and again for a check but apart from them and the odd urban explorer, no one had been down here since the 1940s until we came along,’ says Dring.… Read the full story]]>

The white, red and yellow areas of this house lose the most heat (Picture: Home Heat Helpline/PA Wire)

We’d all love Kevin McCloud to swoop in to build us a dream eco home, complete with solar-powered hot tub. But with or without the help of the Grand Designs guru, starting green living from scratch is not realistic for most: more than 80 per cent of the homes we’ll live in come 2050 have already been built, according to a 2007 report commissioned by The Co-Operative Bank and Friends Of The Earth.

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Leah Kim abandoned her office job to teach yoga and is now Nike’s ambassador for yoga (Picture: supplied)

Leah Kim, 34, was an unsporty child destined for a ‘proper’ job. Somehow, she became Nike’s global yoga master trainer.

Growing up in California, it was the norm to be health-conscious and yoga was around my entire life. But it wasn’t until I was at college at UCLA [University of California, Los Angeles] that I walked into class with the teacher who would become my mentor, and yoga became a huge part of my life. During that first… Read the full story]]>

Before I meet Albeiro Alfonso ‘Foncho’ Cantillo, a banana farmer who is part of a Fairtrade cooperative back in his native Colombia, I’m looking forward to winning him over with my GCSE Spanish.

But it’s only on the way to the Fairtrade head office in east London that I realise I can’t remember the word for ‘banana’, which will possibly be key. I can ask him the way to the swimming pool, or suggest we dance at a disco, but I feel neither will be totally appropriate.

The United Arts Theater features in Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre’s 2010 series The Ruins Of Detroit (Picture: Tristan Hoare Gallery/Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre)

There is something about the dilapidated beauty of ruins, with their eerie evocation of human lives gone by – or gone wrong – that has captured artists’ imaginations for hundreds of years.

Ruin Lust, a new show at London’s Tate Britain, explores the different ways in which artists from the 17th century onwards have expressed this fascination – from Turner’s tumbledown abbeys to contemporary… Read the full story]]>

Getting her hands dirty: Amy joins Cultivate London general manager Adrienne Attorp and head grower Ben Simpkins at an urban farm in Hounslow, West London, a formerly derelict area turned over to food (Picture: Victor Frankowski)

East Hounslow’s London Road isn’t exactly a bucolic vision. In fact, it’s a major thoroughfare in west London, studded with take-aways and fuggy with traffic fumes.

Nevertheless, after walking for just a few minutes, I find a small but thriving urban farm.… Read the full story]]>

http://metro.co.uk/2014/02/19/urban-farming-weve-got-the-future-sown-up-4308796/feed/0Getting her hands dirty: Amy joins Cultivate London general manager Adrienne Attorp and head grower Ben Simpkins at an urban farm in Hounslow, West London, a formerly derelict area turned over to food (Picture: Victor Frankowski)Getting her hands dirty: Amy joins Cultivate London general manager Adrienne Attorp and head grower Ben Simpkins at an urban farm in Hounslow, West London, a formerly derelict area turned over to food (Picture: Victor Frankowski)Pitch perfect: The RHS Britain In Bloom allotment project in Nottingham serves 7,000 people (Picture: Supplied)Vauxhall City Farm (Picture: Supplied)On the Frow at London Fashion Week AW14: Popcorn, cocktails and soggy sockshttp://metro.co.uk/2014/02/18/popcorn-cocktails-and-soggy-socks-on-the-frow-at-london-fashion-week-4307780/
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It’s 8am, I’m moderately hungover and I’m attempting to ‘clean’ a leather skirt using a squeezy bottle of shoe polish. What the hell am I going to wear to my first-ever fashion week? And couldn’t I at least have done some laundry?

Feeling a sense of rising panic, I ring my designer friend, Maria, for advice, wedging the phone under my ear while pouring myself a coffee. ‘Neoprene,’ she says. ‘It sucks you right in. Or you can’t go wrong with grey marl and a big necklace. Oh and wear… Read the full story]]>

The first time I rode a roller coaster, I was six. It was the Teddy Bear coaster at the original Kings Island, along the Ohio River near Cincinnati. I felt like I could do anything when I got off that ride. Then I then rode the Haunted House ride with my uncle and couldn’t close my eyes for a week.